


Land of Soy Sauce and Mothra

by Demixian



Series: The 'Land of...' Series [3]
Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: 'Weeaboos finish last" I guess, Gen, also the themes in logat were love and lust, and in this....., man oh man the ending will fuq u up, the themes in lopat were discrimination, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8556658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demixian/pseuds/Demixian
Summary: Japan, Tokyo, and their holy mission in the name Heavenly Father. Jimmy Green and his companion arrive in Tokyo and find themselves lost in the city life, the lights, the people, and the underground mafia.





	1. Planes

**Author's Note:**

> In honour of BoMMonth, the long-awaited Land of Soy Sauce and Mothra! Enjoy ~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy and Elder Cross go on a plane.

  “We’ve now reached our cruising altitude of flight level three-three-zero. I’ll go ahead and turn off the seat belt sign…”

 

These words are music to Elder Jimmy Green’s ears.

 

  “Did you hear that, Elder? Level three-three-zero! Thirty three thousand feet! Can you believe it?”

 

The man next to him, also wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and a dark pinstriped suit jacket, regards Jimmy with a look of bewilderment, as if genuinely surprised and offended that he has dared to talk to him.

 

  “Yes, it is very believable. With the right equipment, a commercial airplane like this—“

  
  “—Can reach up to sixty-thousand feet!” Jimmy chirps, grinning as he peers through the glass of the plane window immediately next to him. “All the better to gaze upon God’s great earth.”

 

Elder Cross, the only other missionary like Jimmy on the plane, nods in agreement and returns to reading the safety leaflet closely. He lays the leaflet down for a moment to adjust his tie and check his jacket for blemishes for what might be the hundredth time this morning.

 

Jimmy reaches into the backpack at his feet and pulls out a large orange, picking at the peel without taking his eyes off of the view outside.

 

  "How long 'til we land, do you think?”

  
Elder Cross doesn’t reply at first, and Jimmy wonders if he didn’t hear him.

 

  “How long—“

 

  “5 hours, 8 minutes.”

 

  “Oh, okay,” Jimmy replies. “Is…is that an accurate number or an estimate or…?”

 

  “Accurate. Unless I got my math wrong, but—” Elder Cross laughs. He laughs even harder. Then he coughs, begins to choke and, wiping tears from his eyes, he gives one final cough, closes his eyes and settles into a optimal sleeping position. “That’s unlikely."

 

Cross quickly slips into a light nap, signalling the end of the conversation. 

 

Without anyone to talk to, Jimmy rummages around in his backpack and pulls out a thick little black journal. Being required to keep a -diary- journal during his mission, he figures that starting his first entry on the plane is a good start. 

 

_**[1] (Personal & other notes) I have only been on this plane for a few hours, but already I am bubbling over with excitement and anticipation for what is to come! My companion is a relatively good match — I see great potential in him, although he appears rather cold at the moment. I have no doubt this will change once we settle into our bunks at the mission in Tokyo. If it’s anything like the movies, this is going to be a truly magical experience. However, even if the city disappoints, I know that I cannot lose sight of why I am here. Tokyo may have the potential to let me down, but Heavenly Father sure doesn’t. We are currently at level three-three-zero, says the Capt., and the view of the clouds from my window is breathtaking! I’m beginning to feel drowsy now, and I’m sure the jet lag will be terrible, so I end this entry here. High hopes for the future.** _

__

_**Signed, Elder James Green** _

 

Jimmy replaces the journal into his backpack and leans back in his plane seat. The truth is, he lied in that journal entry. His senses are heightened in this strange new situation, and he’s more awake than he’s ever been in his life. 

 

As he fidgets around in his seat, his mind races with images of Tokyo that, as of yet, he has only seen in books and films. And, of course, the occasional TV show.

 

This being strictly a business trip, he did try to refrain from bringing any merchandise or memorabilia from these books, films and TV shows, but he had to bring at least _one_ thing.

 

He unzips his bag once more and takes out a small, neatly-packaged comic book with Japanese characters across the cover.

 

The cover of his book, which in most of the books in Jimmy’s bag would be on left face of it, is instead on the right side, and the blurb is printed on the left. To many of the other elders at the Training Centre, this was bizarre, and even Jimmy’s bunkmate laughed about how literally backwards ‘Jap Culture’ is. To Jimmy, however, the placement of the cover makes perfect sense. 

 

He gently caresses the spine with his right hand and brushes the fingers on his left gently against the embossed letters, gazing at his book with the fondness of a new mother. 

 

  “Boy, I cannot wait to get my nose in you,” Jimmy whispers.

 

A slightly obese man sitting on the aisle seat leans forwards and stares at Jimmy incredulously. Jimmy gives him a polite smile, then goes back to stroking his book.

 

The soothing feeling that petting his book brings allows him to relax a bit, and he stores his book away in its own compartment in his bag, making sure not to let the plastic around it catch or tear on anything. 

 

He settles into his seat and pulls the complimentary blanket up to his neck, sighing serenely. The cabin is nearly silent, and the lights above them have been turned off for the night. It truly is a tranquil atmosphere — and, to think, Jimmy’s mother was so worried about her son flying for the first time.

 

And then the plane drops out of the sky.


	2. Trains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy and Elder Cross go to the train station.

 

 

 

  “Uhhh sorry about that, folks. Just a little turbulence. Uhhh please stay seated and keep your seatbelt on, as we’re uhhh beginning to reach Tokyo."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jimmy and Elder Cross depart from the gleaming, immaculate airport into the metropolis before them. The many skyscrapers and funny little wonky buildings that seem to be made entirely out of glass loom above them as they peer out of the taxi’s windows.

 

Elder Cross gives the overwhelming surroundings one glance, shrugs, then reaches into his bag for a book.

 

Jimmy, on the other hand, gazes in the deepest awe at the forest of shopping centres, apartment complexes, office buildings and hundreds of restaurants that are all slightly obscured as the taxi races along the road behind a hundred — no, a thousand others towards the train station. 

 

Jimmy catches a good glimpse of a deli of some sort as they drive on by, catching only the words “Grilled Mormon’ printed on its windows. He laughs nervously, then focuses his attention on the view from the front. 

 

The driver is a stout little man in a cap that seems rather big for him. He has quite a bit of room in his suit as well, and — it could just be due to the jet lag-derived hallucinations, but it looks as if his feet are only barely touching the pedals.

 

Jimmy immediately wipes this from his mind. He mustn’t focus on things like that, since it’s probably racist, and even _probably_ racist things are bad, since there’s a possibility that they’re racist at all. The guy is just short, end of.

 

  “How long ‘till we get to the train station?” Jimmy asks the taxi driver foolishly, forgetting for a split second that he is in Japan.

 

He’s about to rephrase the question in Japanese when the driver replies, “twenty more minutes, then we’ll be there.”

 

The driver's voice is oddly high pitched for a man, but again, Jimmy dismisses this. He really mustn’t dwell over other’s differences, ever, especially now that he is representing his own country and the Church. 

 

  “Oh, you speak English!” Jimmy exclaims.

 

  “You do realise he’s an _airport cabbie_ , right?” drawls Elder Cross, raising an eyebrow in a condescending expression towards Jimmy. “Of course he knows English. He wouldn’t get half the work he currently does if he could only speak the native language. Tourists would just wait for a cabbie who could understand them. Even in other countries they expect everyone to speak ‘proper English’."

 

They can hear the cabbie chuckling appreciatively in the front, although it’s a bit more of a childish giggle. 

 

Jimmy hangs his head in shame for not thinking of this, and after a few more minutes his fatigue finally catches up to him and his eyelids flutter closed as he falls into a light sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Although he only intended to have a brief catnap in the taxi and they arrived sometime at noon, when Jimmy wakes up it is pitch black outside and there is a sharp pain in his shoulder. No taxi to be seen.

 

The sound of another man’s calm breathing coming from a short distance away causes Jimmy to sit up suddenly, flinching at the pain in his shoulder and looking around.

 

He is sitting on wet concrete at a train station that appears barely used. The tracks are gleaming and rust-free, as if freshly laid. the concrete is fairly smooth and unworn, and the benches are sleek and probably recently painted, as there is not a single chip on their frames. 

 

Elder Cross is still unconscious, propped up against one of the benches. His case — and, upon looking around the station once more, Jimmy’s too, is nowhere to be seen. The stench of chemicals and sawdust pollutes the air around them and when Jimmy stands up after a few more moments, grazing his elbows against the concrete, he feels positively nauseated when his head whips upwards into the cloud of floating particles of what must be toxic fumes.

 

  “Elder? Elder Cross?” he slurs, squinting through the odious gases at the other man still blacked out on the floor. When he receives no answer to this, he attempts to stumble around to look for their cases, but feels himself about ready to throw up, and so he falls to his knees (much to his deep regret, as the impact of falling into the concrete floor isn’t particularly gentle) and hides his mouth and nose inside his shirt.

 

A small giggle, this time unmistakably female, echoes eerily somewhere in the distance. Petrified, Jimmy’s hand reaches down to his pocket and clutches the small Book of Mormon inside it instinctively, his eyes frozen open as he gazes in paralysed terror at two small beams of light approaching from a small distance ahead of him. The foliage, unkempt and feral, that lines the path leading to the station frames the two beams and whatever their source is as it bears almost tauntingly upon the station. 

 

At last, Elder Cross starts coming to.

 

Jimmy can hear the other elder cursing under his breath, most likely attempting to sit up now that he is finally waking up. However, all that concerns Jimmy in this moment is the chill slithering down his spine as the beams of light grown and intensify as they near him inch by inch until he has to narrow his eyes again to keep from blinding his own eyes, but he is still unable to tear his eyes away.

 

The gradually enlarging beams shed their light upon him but not upon their source — although, as they near the station he can start making a guess at it. The slight bob to the way that the lights move and the very vague, humanoid outlines that Jimmy can make out moving behind the beams lead him to believe that they are torches, held by two people whom he does wish to have to confront in his current nauseated state. 

 

  “Case,” Elder Cross mutters, from by the bench. “No, no, my case! Where’s my case? Elder? Elder...Elder Green where’s my suitcase? Where are we, Green? Green, where’s my case?"

 

Cross’s voice grows panicked and Jimmy hears the sound scrambling fingernails against metal, presumably as Cross begins searching.

 

  “Shush, Elder,” Jimmy hisses, eyes still trained on the figures approaching them.

 

  “Where the hell is my case?” Elder Cross demands, not bothering at all to lower his voice and making loud, obnoxious clanging noises from trying and failing to find his way around the station in the dark and, from the sounds of it, repeatedly bumping into the metal bench.

 

  “Elder, be _quiet_ ,” Jimmy spits furiously, his hands beginning to shake as the lights grow closer and closer and closer until...

 

The people drop their outstretched arms wielding the torches to their sides, allowing Jimmy’s eyes to widen again and giving him a better view of the visitors.

 

The tallest of the two is an old woman. Marks of battled and defeated fatigue lie in the wrinkles on her face, and even in the dim reflections of her torch against the concrete, there is a just visible, dimly scintillating flame of authority, set against a deceiving backdrop of kindly features such as her messy housewife’s bun and contented, relaxed smile. 

 

The shorter one, a young boy, likely pre-pubescent judging by his pudgy face and general stature, narrows his eyes down at Jimmy in apparent scrutiny, his expression not quite as soft as his companion’s. His scruffy, kettle-black hair rivals the wily bushes behind them, and his disapproving pout reveals a heavily chewed bottom lip. 

 

The two of them make a striking pair, donning black hoodies and well-worn jeans with torn shins.

 

For a moment, they stay perfectly still, looming over Jimmy like invigilators. He feels his throat seize up and he gurgles in a feeble attempt to speak.

 

The boy glances over at his companion, raising an eyebrow expectantly. The woman spares him a brief look in response, but it is unreadable under the low light.

 

After another moment, the old woman raises her torch again and clicks it off, sliding it into her back pocket and then sticking her hands into the front ones.

 

She cocks her head to the side sweetly, gifting Jimmy with a warm grin, without a semblance of the previous spark of intimidation that she emanated moments before. She then lifts her chin and asks, “Are you okay, _James Green_?"

 

Jimmy has a brief moment of foolishness in which he wonders how on earth she knows his name, and then he remembers the little plastic name card on his left breast and dismisses the question.

 

  “Uh,” he responds, words failing him as a mix of relief, dizziness and confusion clouds his concentration.

 

  “WHERE IS MY DAMN CASE?” yells Elder Cross, stumbling into the young boy and letting out a screech of surprise.

 

The young boy scowls up at him, regaining his footing and stepping away, nearer to his companion.

 

Jimmy slowly attempts to stand up, the sharp pain in his knees returning to his attention and waking him up a little. “I’m…we’re both a little shaken, I think."

 

  “Green, who are these…?” Elder Cross demands, gesturing wildly at the old woman and her friend.

 

The woman ignores Cross. “You want help?"

 

Clearly the one being addressed, Jimmy nods meekly, still not seeing their suitcases anywhere. Or their bags. 

 

Elder Cross continues to splutter and stumble around in dazed frustration while the adults talk. “Where are we? Green, who are they? Where’s the taxi man? Did he kill us? Is this is torture cell? Why is it cold?"

 

Cross’s interrogation continues and the woman extends a gentle hand, carefully placing it on Jimmy’s shoulder.

 

  “You come with us,” she commands, no, _suggests,_ her voice smooth and appealing. “Bring your friend, too."

 

Jimmy is led away by the old woman and the boy, and he shoots Cross an imploring glare that the other elder reluctantly obeys.

 

As they leave the way the woman and the boy entered, Jimmy glances at the other side of the station walls and notes the large, wooden supports holding them up — as if part of a Hollywood set. 


End file.
